THE HIGH COST OF MARIJUANA BUSTS!
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The ''MUNCHIES'' will get you every time!
Oldcatman
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****Pizza Box Leads Detectives To Marijuana Grow House
(Driver Found With Pot Plants In Truck Says He Got
Them From Address On Pizza Box.)
STUART, Fla. -- A pizza box found during a traffic stop led to the discovery of a marijuana grow house in a Stuart neighborhood Friday morning, the Martin County Sheriff's Office said.
Daniel Clough and Stephen Luce were arrested on marijuana possession and cultivation charges. Detectives said more than 200 marijuana plants were found growing in their garage.
According to their arrest reports, detectives were led to the home in the Mariner Village subdivision after Robert Bouchard was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving Thursday night. During a search of Bouchard's vehicle, a deputy found a trash bag with 35 marijuana plants and a Domino's pizza box in the bed of the truck.
Bouchard stated that the marijuana plants came from the Magellan Lane address on the pizza box, detectives said. He was arrested on the same charges.
Clough and Luce said they started growing marijuana two years ago and were selling 2 pounds a month, making $4,000 each, detectives said.
Detectives said they were still trying to determine the working relationship between Clough, Luce and Bouchard.
Copyright 2011 by WPBF.com.
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"Can I have a joint for dessert?
(I suspect that a very high per cent of students eat lunch in THIS cafeteria!)
Oldcatman
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****Cafeteria Manager Accused Of Giving Out Pot!
EDGEWATER, Colo. -- The cafeteria manager at an Edgewater high school was arrested Thursday, accused of giving marijuana to friends of her teenage daughter.
Michelle Lynn Whitmire, of Golden, works at Jefferson High School and has been with the school district since 2006, the Jefferson County School District said Friday.
Investigators went to Whitmire's home on Jan. 9 on an unrelated issue and discovered three teens in the home and the strong odor of marijuana.
One of the teens told police that Whitmire has a medical marijuana license and that there was a lot of marijuana in the house, according to the arrest affidavit. The boy also told police that "she gives it to all the kids," according to the affidavit.
That teenage boy, whom police took into custody on an unrelated warrant, gave officers the names of other minors he said received marijuana from Whitmire. The minors ranged in age and are in elementary school, middle school and high school, the affidavit said.
He "stated that the marijuana is kept in Michelle Whitmire's bedroom behind the TV on a dresser in a large jar, located on the southeast corner of the residence where paraphernalia would also be found," the affidavit said. He also told police marijuana could also be found in the daughter's room, along with paraphernalia.
Whitmire was booked in jail on Thursday and held on suspicion of distribution of marijuana and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was released on $10,000 bond.
The school district has placed the 51-year-old woman on paid administrative leave.
She has worked for the school district since 2006.
She is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 24.
Copyright 2011 TheDenverChannel
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Where or where does POT BUST evidence go?
(Cops get stoned too!)
Oldcatman
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****What's a Drug Bust Really Worth?
News that the San Francisco Police Department had seized $11.5 million worth of illegal cannabis in calendar year 2010 set the local sphere of growers, activists, and informed tokers abuzz.
That figure is peanuts compared to the SFPD's overall budget of $445 million, and not that much more than the single haul Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies had on a remote island last year.
Still, speculation lingers: Where did all that pot go?
If SFPD seized 13,500 plants, worth $11.5 million, it must have been quite a payday for the department. One activist even guessed that SFPD had sold the seized buds on the black market.
Relax. SFPD did not seize $11.5 million in cash, nor did they seize $11.5 million worth of packaged, processed, ready-to-be-slung-to-teenagers buds.
Here's why.
An eighth of an ounce of marijuana sells in San Francisco between $35 and $60, depending on the merchant and the quality. But for ease, let's say it's selling for $45. A pound of marijuana will catch between $500 and $2,500 at wholesale in California. Again, for ease, let's say a pound of good bud is worth a (very generous) $2,000.
These market figures are easily verifiable at dispensaries' Web sites and also at the classified listings at Budtrader.com (always a fine read).
The SFPD's narcotics unit uses the following formula to calculate the net worth of marijuana confiscated at a drug bust: A pot plant is worth three ounces of marijuana, and every pound they seized is estimated at $3,000 on the streets, according to Sgt. Mike Andraychak, a department spokesman.
"Since then, the price has gone down," Andraychak said, telling SF Weekly that narcotics officers will update the formula sometime this year, and will continue to adjust it seasonally.
Going by the SFPD's formula, 13,500 plants worth $11.5 million would break down to $831 per plant.
Yet on the growing-room floor, it looks somewhat like this: If you have an indoor plant that produces three ounces of pot, that plant could be worth $1,080 on the street, assuming all three ounces are sold at $45 for every eighth-pound. If every pound is broken up and sold as $45-eighths, then each pound is worth $5,760 -- much higher than what SFPD estimates, but also realistic.
Even if an indoor farmer has a solid harvest, those ounces are sold for $200 or less. And none of that is pure profit. Someone has to pay the electric bill, pay for nutrients, and pay someone to trim it. And there's waste in every crop. When you factor all that in, the profit margin gets even slimmer.
"Your average mediocre grower is going to get one to two ounces per plant, or three to four ounces if they really know what they're doing," said an Oakland-based source deep into the growing business.
Even if SFPD counted only mature plants, the police practice of counting any kind of plant -- mature, immature, healthy or sick -- means that SFPD's three-ounce per plant average is hopelessly high.
This sounds fine until you consider that seizure estimates always include immature plants, male plants, hermaphrodite plants and clones -- stuff a self-respecting stoner wouldn't smoke for anything. Moreover, it's stuff that's impossible to smoke.
Point is, there's really no way to know how much exactly the pot seized by SFPD is worth, without knowing if it was top-shelf Sour Diesel, midgrade anonymous indica or power mildewy-Mexican brown. And certainly, there's no reason to believe that someone, somewhere has $11.5 million of drug money stashed in a duffel bag.
The math is fuzzy as to be almost worthless. Yet those numbers are just the same in court, where they have real-life consequences.
AP
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